This is generally in the area of drug delivery of compounds to aquatic animals, and in particular uses ultrasound to effect or enhance uptake of compounds by aquatic animals.
Fish farming has become one of the most rapidly growing agricultural industries in recent years. One of the major problems in commercial fish farming is the administration of drugs, peptides, proteins, vaccines and other chemical compounds to the fish. Currently, approaches for the administration of these compounds to fish is by injection, use of implants, incorporation into food, or, for a limited number of agents, via diffusion from the water (with or without a short osmotic shock). In general, all of these methods are labor intensive, often inefficient and sometimes not successful. In many cases it is impractical on a commercial scale to inject each fish or crustacean with drug. The uptake of these compounds coadministered with food or placed directly in the water is inefficient and unpredicatable, often requiring high levels of drug.
Ultrasound has been suggested as a means of administering drugs through the skin. The drug is administered topically to the skin, a coupling gel applied, and ultrasound applied to the drug via a probe placed in contact with the gel. The ultrasound enhances permeation of the drugs through the skin at a controlled rate. The advantages of this technique is that the ultrasound forces some drugs through the skin that could not otherwise be delivered transdermally and the transfer occurs at a controlled rate. Such a method is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,767,402 to Kost, et al. Applying the ultrasound method for transdermal drug delivery to aquatic animals would be impractical, extremely labor intensive, and the results not predictable, particularly in the case of fish since the skin of a mammal and the scaled skin of a fish are so different. Ultrasound has also been used to force DNA into mammalian embryos under highly controlled laboratory conditions.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method for effecting or enhancing administration of compounds to a variety of aquatic animals.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method for administration of compounds on a large, commercially useful scale.